Why do doctors write illegibly?
After asking doctors and pharmacist about the reasons which make doctors write unintelligibly, we discovered some reasons and they are as follow:
1. Some doctors claim that it is the time pressure coupled with other work stress that compel a doctor to write illegibly. Some doctors argue that they have so little time and are under so much stress that they can't possibly think how they write. But another study reveals that doctors don't really improve even when told to write slowly and neatly with ample time even for test purpose. And the same study said that it was the letters of the alphabet that were affected more compared than the numbers.
2. Some doctors say that in medical school they have to write a lot of things very quickly and it just becomes a really bad habit.
3. However others say that it becomes a skill.
4. other doc(doctors) that There are many generic names for medications that are incredibly similar so they can not remember the exact spelling for example they do not remember if the word is written with I or e ,so they write the word in some way not clear to do not show the mistake.
5. Sometimes the medicines’ names are too long so the docs write the first two or three letters legibly then Scrawl. Doctors use the same words over and over so it only takes one or two letters in context to recognize a specialized word.
6. Many also realize that what they write is not intended for the public to see, only for themselves and their peers.
7. Other docs say that it is better to abbreviate. It's much faster to write for example:’ SOB' than 'shortness of breath’. Some other common abbreviations are:
· NAD: no acute distress.
· CAD: coronary artery disease.
· HBP: hypertension.
· GERD: gastro-esophageal reflux disease.
· CP: chest pain.
· PUD: peptic ulcer disease.